Give them a slick kitchen and some fancy ingredients and we know chefs can do ingenious things. It’s their job, after all. Less well known but arguably more useful in this era of soaring food and energy prices, is that chefs are also very adept at improving food and intensifying flavours at little to no cost. Show them a typical weekly shop, and their brains will begin to whir over potential ways of making food tastier with a few simple tricks. No need for expensive gadgets. No rare ingredients.
From reviving traditional kitchen habits to vogueish approaches to seasoning, here’s how to maximise flavour at minimum expense.
Old jars, new flavours
Before recycling jars of pesto, mayonnaise, tomato paste, mustard and such, add oil and shake vigorously. This creates the base for a “delicious dressing, while ensuring you’ve got the last bits out”, says Samantha Harvey, the head chef at the Laundry in Brixton, London.
Hold on to the cheese rind
Adding leftover parmesan rind to a meaty ragu as it cooks will give it “a strong, savoury, umami backbone”, says Tom Tsappis, the chef patron at Killiekrankie House in Perthshire, Scotland. Just be sure to remove it before serving.
Equally effectively, you can steep any old rinds or hardened cheese ends in milk for a day before using them to create an intensively cheesy béchamel sauce. These are your options, he says: you’ll either end up not needing to grate so much cheese into a mornay sauce for fish or on a macaroni cheese, or “you’ll end up with a more luxurious mac’n’cheese”.
Compound stock butter
Merely diluting stock cubes in water underutilises this versatile seasoning. For example, they can be used as a dry rub for roast meats or as an everyday salt replacement. Rather than provide a familiar lick of sodium chloride, it will give a more rounded, “savoury umami hit”, says the chef Si Toft, owner of the Dining Room in Abersoch, Gwynedd.
Toft’s “biggie” is compound stock butters: three or four chicken stock cubes – “beef is too intense” – whisked into a block of softened butter, then rolled, refrigerated, sliced into coins and frozen to create instantly deployable nuggets of fat plus flavour: “Stir them into a sauce, bang into a tray with roast potatoes, over steamed veg, whatever.”
Recycling rice water
If rinsing white rice to ensure distinct, fluffy grains, retain the starchy water for boiling your vegetables. This is a traditional Japanese method, often used to take the edge off daikon radish (or mooli): “The minerals in the water remove any bitterness,” says Masaki Sugisaki, the chef-owner at the restaurant Dinings SW3.
Batch cooking
Besides being energy efficient, cooking extra portions for later in the week or for the freezer has potential flavour upsides, too.
Leafier vegetable dishes don’t necessarily suit reheating. “With some, you end up with mush,” says Mayur Patel, the co-founder of Bundobust. But meat- or pulse-based soups, stews, curries, ragus and even some hardier salads retain their texture and often develop far punchier, more cohesive flavours after a period in the freezer or 24 hours in the fridge.
The science of this unexpected bonus – how flavour molecules slowly disperse, or how calcium receptors are activated on your tongue – is complex. But the phenomenon is so self-evident that the Japanese word kokumi is used to describe the greater complexity many cooked foods exhibit when reheated next day.
Anchovies
“Unless you spend hours making a tomato sauce, these little silver fish might be the answer,” says the chef Sam Grainger, co-owner of Belzan in Liverpool and Madre in Manchester. Finely chop some anchovies, and fry to begin a stew or sauce. Like soy sauce, they will add a “layer of salty umami without completely changing the dish. They’re not that fishy. For vegans, shiitake mushroom powder does the same.”
Retained fats
Historically, saving the fat from a roast chicken, beef joint or roast lamb was second nature to home cooks. Less so now. Henry Omereye, the executive chef at the Riding House cafes in London, urges us all to freeze this “scrumptious oil” in ice-cube trays (it will keep for three months), and utilise its “locked-in flavour” by, say, using it to dress boiled potatoes, in rice stir-fries or as a gravy base: “Call it a magic trick: flavour added without salt and powder.”
Next-level gravy
If making instant gravy for a roast, dilute the meat juices with the cooking water from your potatoes, says Oli Marlow, executive chef at Aulis, London. “It’s added flavour that you don’t get from tap water.”
Another good steer, from Ben Mulock, the executive chef at Balans in London, is to puree any veg you stuffed under your roasting joint as aromatics (onion, carrots, celery), and blend that puree into your gravy “to give it body and flavour”. This, he says, should largely remove the need to use thickening flour, the common cause of lumpy gravy.
Chilli sauce
“People aren’t that adventurous with chilli sauces,” says Nina Matsunaga, the head chef at the Black Bull in Sedbergh, Cumbria. But look at that list of ingredients: garlic, onion, vinegar, sugar, tomato paste, etc. Logically, using a chilli sauce, rather than the blunt heat of fresh chillies, should add winning depth to noodles, stir-fries, soups and stews. At the Black Bull, she says, they “make chilli con carne with our own fermented hot sauce. You can put it in as if using a teaspoon of chilli.”
Lemon zest
Chefs talk about seasoning with acidity in the way we civilians talk of salt. As Toft explains, its flavour shouldn’t be overt and most people wouldn’t realise it is missing. “But, as soon as it’s there, you’re like, ‘Ah, there we are.’ It makes everything sing.”
There are several ways to achieve that edge. James Simpson, the co-founder and chef at Owt in Leeds, likes to enhance pasta, “especially with tomato-based sauces”, ratatouille, braised pork or roast chicken with a few strokes of very finely grated lemon zest. It gives dishes “a subtle brightness”, he says.
Vinegar sauces
“Any rich, buttery sauce or gravy benefits from a little acid, added at the end,” says Phil King, the executive chef at Pophams, London. “This can be citrus or vinegar. We love moscatel vinegar, but any vinegar will give your sauce a lift.”
Using acidity for clarity and balance is not confined to savoury foods. Irina Georgescu, a cookery writer and the author of Tava, adds white wine vinegar to cake batters, mousses or sauces. “Making jam, if something goes very sweet, I add a tiny bit. The transformation is miraculous. You don’t taste the vinegar; it’s just a contrast to the sweetness.”
Pickling juices
These are too often poured down the sink, but chefs prize the brine from jars of pickled capers or gherkins. Jun Tanaka, the chef-owner at the Ninth, London, says they provide a “base for delicious, interesting vinaigrettes”. Simply mix this precious liquid – “water, vinegar and salt, infused with flavour” – with oil and further seasonings, to taste.
Aktar Islam, the chef-owner of Opheem, Birmingham, uses the “salty goodness” of jalapeño brine to deepen the flavour of a quick tuna or egg mayo sandwich. He also uses orange zest and olive brine to make a flavoured aioli to “dollop on to grilled salmon”.
Tsappis says that a drop of olive brine is the perfect “back-note” for the tomato and slow-cooked meat flavours of a ragu: “It’s the question we ask most in the restaurant: ‘Where’s the acidity in the dish?’”
Seasoning with sugar
Like acidity, sugar is an unsung component in savoury cooking. Georgescu adds a dusting to onions as they caramelise: “It enhances the onions’ flavour rather than just sweetening.”
Tsappis thinks that sugar is essential: “You add it to a tomato sauce as we’re not getting the tomatoes they get in Sicily. It’s a compensatory thing. But, likewise, if making carrot and coriander or parsnip soup, by using vegetables that contain a base level of sugar, you’re amplifying what’s there.”
The cheat’s gastrique
To lock sweetness and acidity into dishes, chefs traditionally used sugar-vinegar reductions known as gastriques. Because life is short, says Toft, “a little sharp, sweet tomato ketchup” is an effective home sub, useful in darker sauces.
Salting sweet items
“Salt to sweet baking is like bay leaves in cooking,” says Lungi Mhlanga, the owner of a doughnut cafe, Treats Club London. “You’re not supposed to know it’s there, but when it’s not, you notice.” Increasingly, baking recipes include salt to foreground flavours of chocolate or vanilla, and Mhlanga considers it essential for french toast, to prevent it becoming cloyingly sweet.
It may seem counterintuitive, says King, but a sprinkle of sea salt on many desserts creates “little explosions” of heightened flavour: “Anything with chocolate, caramel, meringue, nuts, even some fruits, will benefit.”
Brining
Placing meat and white fish in a 5% salt solution for two hours and adding suitable herbs, spices and flavourings will, due to osmosis and the brine softening muscle fibres, result in a juicier, tender piece of protein that will be seasoned throughout. Avoid brining small oily fish, though, as they may “firm and dry too much”, says Paul Ainsworth, the owner of the Michelin-starred No 6 in Padstow, Cornwall..
Coffee-rubbed beef
At home, Toft creates a coffee paste to flavour roast beef. Quantities will vary depending on the size of the joint, but he suggests mixing equal amounts of coffee granules and brown sugar, adding any herbs or spices you like (Toft is fond of cumin with beef), and enough balsamic vinegar to create a paste. You then rub it all over the meat. “You’ve got sweetness, sharpness, bitterness, spice. Lovely.”
Jarred mayonnaise
If there’s no creme fraiche or soft cheese, jarred mayo will do to make a “quick, white sauce-esque recipe” for chicken or fish. “Gently warm the mayo, and water it down to the required consistency,” says Jan Ostle, co-owner of the Michelin-starred Wilson’s in Bristol. “Add capers, cornichons, herbs, and you can get it rather fancy.”
Now butter prices have “gone through the roof”, Judy Joo, co-founder of Seoul Bird, London, recommends spreading the outside of pan-fried toasties with mayo: “It tastes better and gives you that perfect golden crispy exterior.”
Quick pickled red onion
Georgescu loves tangy Romanian salată de ceapă (onion salad) to add to soups, stews, hummus-style spreads and grilled meats. It also, she says, “goes insanely well with baked beans”. Take one finely sliced medium red onion, and rub together with 3g salt and 15ml white wine vinegar, before leaving it to sit for anywhere between 30 minutes and two hours.
Ultimate salad-topper
As a cheaper alternative to pine nuts, Ollie Templeton, the chef and co-owner of Carousel, London, keeps sunflower seeds on standby at home: “Toast in a dry pan until brown, then add a splash of oil followed by a choice of soy, lemon, cider vinegar, mirin or chilli flakes. The liquid caramelises and the chilli sticks to the seeds, making a sweet, sour, spicy, crunchy addition.”
